A small point to do with rebels.

[Garuda]

This might seem a bit of a minor gripe to most players, but one thing that annoys me in Victoria when it comes to rebels is that they are always highly organised professional units.

Shouldn't rebels (in most cases at least) be militia units?

[RedRalphWiggum]

This might seem a bit of a minor gripe to most players, but one thing that annoys me in Victoria when it comes to rebels is that they are always highly organised professional units.

Shouldn't rebels (in most cases at least) be militia units?

Absolutely. Maybe with high morale and poor organisation

[HMS Enterprize]

The whole system needs an overhaul. Even in Vicky 1 where you had rebel divisions form (as unlikely as that is) they were easily put down for a number of reasons, chiefly- they suffered attrition which was much quicker than the time needed to declare independence for a region and/or switch alliegance to another power.

Some ideas to make rebellions more realistic-

1) Vicky1 rebellions never gave the real life sense that if you move troops from place X to Y then both places might rebel. This could do with looking at, It was too easy just to march a division from wherever to put down a rebellion.

2) The POP/region of the troops. Would they support the rebels if their home state rebels or they have similar issues to the revolters? Should perhaps be a factor methinks.

Conversly however, the HOI2 system, a simple partisan percentage did not feel right (and was quite dull) either and I dont think this sort of system would suit Vicky. A balance between the 2 needs to be struck or a whole new system.

[FOARP]

The whole system needs an overhaul. Even in Vicky 1 where you had rebel divisions form (as unlikely as that is) they were easily put down for a number of reasons, chiefly- they suffered attrition which was much quicker than the time needed to declare independence for a region and/or switch alliegance to another power.

Some ideas to make rebellions more realistic-

1) Vicky1 rebellions never gave the real life sense that if you move troops from place X to Y then both places might rebel. This could do with looking at, It was too easy just to march a division from wherever to put down a rebellion.

2) The POP/region of the troops. Would they support the rebels if their home state rebels or they have similar issues to the revolters? Should perhaps be a factor methinks.

Conversly however, the HOI2 system, a simple partisan percentage did not feel right (and was quite dull) either and I dont think this sort of system would suit Vicky. A balance between the 2 needs to be struck or a whole new system.

National uprisings should be *real*, that is, they should create new nations at war with the parent state, with substantial armies etc. Guerilla uprisings can be modelled as events causing attrition to units in the province concerned and disorder and monetary loss to the national economy - fail to bring these under control for long enough and it should shift into civil war - either an independence movement in one part of the country or a war for control of the entire state. This would make these movements far more realistic, and more fun to suppress as you would be fighting a proper war rather than simply shuffling divisions.

Think of it like this - playing as the UK, for years you have been receiving reports of guerilla activity (i.e., a province modifier similar to the crime/corruption modifier in Vicky 1, but which also causes loses in military units stationed in the province concerned) in Ireland, but you have never been able to properly suppress it. Now you find yourself at war with Germany, you try to keep the lid on the whole Irish thing, but you have to draw down the number of troops in Ireland, gambling that nothing will happen there in the meantime. Your gamble doesn't pay off - Michael Collins, De Valera and the gang seize control of Dublin and declare an Irish Free State controlling large parts of the south of Ireland with its own government, flag, and army (say 4-5 scattered brigades). Now, you could make peace with them and recognise their state, but these are hard times, and anyway, you know that Ulster is on your side, so you siphon off some divisions from your front against Germany and crush the Irish rebels, forcing the surrender of the Irish. Ireland goes back to Guerilla war.

Now wouldn't that be much more fun than "You have lost control of Dublin to the rebels" occurring every few months for 20-30 years on end, shuffling a division in to crush the rebels, and then waiting for the next equally boring event?

[Minodrin]

Yeah, we want rebels that are both realistic and challenging, not whack a mole as of now.

Challenging things are good, frustrating things are not. Don't confuse the two.

[Airfixer]

I hope that they will improve the ideological rebellions as well, like the soviet revolution in russia, or in other countries. There should be an option to negotiate with the rebels, and if you crush the rebellion with force, maybe an vast increase of militancy of other pops in the area, or even desertion of troops joining the rebellion. We should also make different rebellion "factions" since in Vicky/Ricky 1 you could have a situation where the combined rebellion of reactionary, communist and anarcho-liberal forces overthrow the government and establish say a communist government, then the two other rebellious groups lay down their arms and join the new state, which is utterly unrealistic . . .

[Atlantic Friend]

It'd be a great idea indeed to have rebels form up nations! If V2's playing time gets beyond the 1930s we could have real independence movements, forcing the colonial powers to either police their empire at great costs or "granting" independence, a choice that ironically is better depicted in Victoria than in Hearts of Iron.

[CommisarPapadov]

I can see most players, when fighting an already difficult war, reloading a previous save as soon as one of these rebellions pops up

[rjf101]

What I don't like about rebels is that rebellions often kill off an entire POP, which may even be the only only POP of a certain ethnicity or religion in that province, or the only POP in the province in it is a very small one. Basically, I think rebellions are too big. A revolt consisting of 10,000 people in one area should be a very rare event. If I'm not mistaken most revolts in this time period (and weren't they pretty rare?) only had a few hundred people in a particular area, with perhaps a few simultaneous rebellions in other areas. Someone probably knows more about this than me but from what I know most rebellions in Victoria are way too big.

[EUnderhill]

What I don't like about rebels is that rebellions often kill off an entire POP, which may even be the only only POP of a certain ethnicity or religion in that province, or the only POP in the province in it is a very small one. Basically, I think rebellions are too big. A revolt consisting of 10,000 people in one area should be a very rare event. If I'm not mistaken most revolts in this time period (and weren't they pretty rare?) only had a few hundred people in a particular area, with perhaps a few simultaneous rebellions in other areas. Someone probably knows more about this than me but from what I know most rebellions in Victoria are way too big.

I look at it as the others taking a hint and resettling elsewhere in numbers too diffuse to warrant a POP.

[Frederic III]

I think rebellions are always strange in paradox games. France in 1789 were not a totally upstanding country, Russia in 1917 were not too and Austria-Hungary never had a thing like 300 000 peasants revolt at the end of the WW1. I think national unity like in HoI3 could in a more realistic way simulate thw power crisis, and for the real rebellions, since Victoria is a game about industrial revolution, there should be more likely have strike before munty and, at last, open rebellion of peasants or military units.

[FOARP]

I can see most players, when fighting an already difficult war, reloading a previous save as soon as one of these rebellions pops up

Perhaps not, not if by winning the war you crush the rebellion so that it cannot come back for a long time. It would be like in Rome TW when you capture a rebellious town and have them all put to the sword, thus solving that city's happiness problem - by destroying the rebels you greatly reduce militancy and nationalist opinions (however those are to be modelled).

Furthermore, these events would not fire randomly (like the whack-a-mole rebellions of Vicky 1) but would stem clearly from your own decision making. So if our imaginary British player did reload and try to avoid the rebellion in Ireland, he could only do so by not dispatching forces from Ireland to fight Germany.

[FOARP]

What I don't like about rebels is that rebellions often kill off an entire POP, which may even be the only only POP of a certain ethnicity or religion in that province, or the only POP in the province in it is a very small one. Basically, I think rebellions are too big. A revolt consisting of 10,000 people in one area should be a very rare event. If I'm not mistaken most revolts in this time period (and weren't they pretty rare?) only had a few hundred people in a particular area, with perhaps a few simultaneous rebellions in other areas. Someone probably knows more about this than me but from what I know most rebellions in Victoria are way too big.

Which is exactly why they should be modelled as province modifiers rather than as whack-a-mole rebellions.

[Velko]

EU3 already has different kinds of "rebels with a cause", with whom you can even negotiate (although the only thing you can do is to give in to their demands), and I hope and believe that some of that will be carried over to Vicky2.

[HMS Enterprize]

EU3 already has different kinds of "rebels with a cause", with whom you can even negotiate (although the only thing you can do is to give in to their demands), and I hope and believe that some of that will be carried over to Vicky2.

An expansion of this idea would be good.

[Mizzery]

I've always thought that it would be nice to (occasionally) see a rebel unit pop up with an exceptional general to lead them. History is brimming with such examples (why wouldn't one of the Mexican Zapatista rebel units... actually have "Zapata" as it's leader? The number of these "exceptional" rebel leaders should be quite small, but it would add something to the game. Can you imagine a rebel unit led by a general with -10 attrition, conquering provinces but not dwindling away to nothing? Even if one argues that many rebels wouldn't have set foot outside of their home province, wouldn't a great rebel leader attract new followers in every province they invade? (I mean this in the rhetorical sense... there's no need for that to actually happen, just that their unit size evens out between desertions and new recruits). I've just seen too many revolts in India, Russia, and Ireland peter out due to attrition, despite a complete lack of action taken by the home nation!

Also, and this is probably kinda silly, but hear me out: When a rebel unit captures a coastal province where ships are "in port", couldn't it be feasible for some of those ships to either be captured by the rebels, or for the crews to actually join the rebellion? Especially if the ships are "native" or "colonial"-quality. I got this idea while watching the 1966 Steve McQueen movie "The Sand Pebbles", where Chinese rebels repeatedly attempt to capture an American gunboat! "Rebel" ships probably wouldn't last very long, but it would at least cost the home country the loss of those vessels (and, maybe a loss of prestige?)